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Lukas van Loggerenberg ‘Breton’ Cabernet Franc, Stellenbosch, South Africa 2020
Lukas van Loggerenberg ‘Breton’ Cabernet Franc, Stellenbosch, South Africa 2020
Lukas van Loggerenberg told us that his inspiration for this Cabernet Franc (known in certain areas of the Loire region as ‘Breton’) is Chinon, which gets better and better with age, often still drinking well on its 15th, even its 20th birthday. His 2020 ‘Breton’ Cabernet Franc is a wine that is only at the beginning of its journey, already supple and beautiful, but waiting for the next twist of the kaleidoscope to reveal new dimensions. Enjoy it now for its silky, graphite-laced, black cherry exuberance or wait for the next instalment, which will be equally enthralling I’m sure. It’s a cliffhanger of a wine, but we are certain that you will still be enjoying future episodes 15 years at least from now. If so, we look forward to receiving your thank you note (please address it to the Old Vintners Retirement Home). 13% alc. Drink now-2035.
Press review:
Tim Atkin MW: “This brilliant, stylishly refined Cabernet Franc uses equal amounts of fruit from the Polkadraai Hills and Firgrove. Perfumed and refreshing, it's a South African take on a St Nicolas de Bourgueil, all balance, poise and detail. Taut and granitic with gentle, caressing tannins and silky red berry and black cherry fruit. 2023-29.” 95 points
Lukas Loggerenberg: ‘Young Winemaker of the Year’ - Tim Atkin MW
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“This might be the finest wine that I have tasted from Lukas Van Loggerenberg.” - Neal Martin, 97 points
“World class.” - Tim Atkin MW, 96 points
When Chris Alheit introduces a new winemaker, who he says is one to look out for, then people necessarily sit up and take notice. That was what happened when Chris contacted his old friend and UK importer, Richard Kelley, with an email that simply said “Richard meet Lukas, Lukas meet Richard”. Richard caught the next plane out to The Cape and the rest is history. Within a few years, Lukas has become synonymous with South Africa’s ‘New Wave’ and both wine merchants and wine drinkers now have to fight for an allocation.
His ‘Graft’ Syrah from the Polkadraai Hills, just outside Stellenbosch, is a thing of great beauty, evoking wines like Cote Rotie and Hermitage with purple flower petals in its upper register, black cherry in its middle register and sweet spice in its lower register. It’s wonderfully authentic. There’s a wonderful inner perfume that suffuses the dark, mellifluous fruit, bringing exotic seduction to a grape than can taste monolithic in the wrong hands. It’s 100% whole bunch-fermented, which brings a sappy, juiciness to the wine, and aged for a year in a mix of Italian concrete and old French oak, which softens and sweetens the crunchy young berries. Can be drunk when young, as it has so much fruit, but it has decades ahead of it. 14% alc. Drink now-2042.
Press reviews:
Vinous (Neal Martin): “"The 2022 Graft is pure Syrah from Polkadraai Hills that is matured two-thirds in concrete, the remainder in second-fill barrels. "It's the easiest wine I make because of the quality of the vineyard," Van Loggerenberg mentions. It has a stunning crushed violet petal, mineral-driven bouquet that effortlessly subsumes the 100% whole bunch. The palate is supremely well-balanced and tensile, with touches of pink peppercorn and brine infusing the black fruit, leading to another, almost Cornas-like, pliant finish. This might be the finest wine that I have tasted from Lukas Van Loggerenberg (so far). Drink now-2050.“ 97 points
Greg Sherwood MW: “This pretty Syrah shows a deep broody aromatics with layers of rose water, lavender, violets, red plum, red cherry, and scented talc. The palate shows incredible intensity and fine chalky tannins with a power and precision, or as Lukas says, Cote Rotie meets Polkadraai Hills! A multi-layered, texturally stimulating Syrah that s incredibly perfumed, intense, and quite profound. One of Lukas s most sophisticated wines without doubt.” 97+ points
Tim Atkin MW: “ "A freak of a vineyard", is how Lukas van Loggerenberg describes Karibib, the source of several of the Cape's most exciting Syrahs, including this one. Fermented with whole bunches before ageing in a 70/30 combination of concrete and older barrels, Graft is a violet, lavender and paprika-scented red with a palate of damson, black olive and blackberry, dense, layered tannins and the grip and concentration to age. World class. Drink now-2032.” 96 points
JancisRobinson.com (Tamlyn Currin): “Smells of black pepper and wild strawberries. Intensely peppery but no shortage of super-fresh, resonant fruit. The tannins feel like old parchment, layer upon layer. It really presses into you, delicious concentration on the mid palate but really dancing on the nose and on the finish. Tremendous energy. Drink now-2032.” 17.5 points
“This wine is so damn good that I keep thinking that maybe someone made a typo with the price. Very, very good value.”- Tamlyn Currin for JancisRobinson.com, 17 points
From one of Europe's oldest wine-growing regions this Braucol (a member of the Cabernet family) is full of old-word charm and has spent 18 months in new and old oak barrels followed by 3 years ageing in bottle, so it was released at a perfect state of maturity. It doesn't take any persuading to show its class, immediately displaying its softness, fleshiness and approachability, with charming aromas of leafy blackcurrant fruit, creamy blueberries, a hint of oak spice and a teasing suggestion of the carpenter's workshop. In the mouth it is juicy and mouth-filling with supple, fruit-soaked tannins, suggestions of cedar and a sweetness of fruit that makes it succulent and velvety. It’s a ringer for a classy Saint Julien, like Chateau Talbot or Chateau Saint Pierre, and when we’ve served it at tastings ‘blind’ from a decanter, we’ve heard jaws dropping when we’ve revealed the price to them (most people placing it as a £20+ Bordeaux). This is the kind of tipple that would be sipped heartily at Downtown Abbey but equally round a modern and rather more modest dinner table. One of the best value wines in our troupe. 13% alc. Drink now-2032. NB This wine ages incredibly well, like a gentleman’s claret, so our ‘drink by’ date of 2032 is extremely conservative!
Press review:
JancisRobinson.com: “100% Braucol aka Fer Servadou. 18 months in new and old oak barrel.
If I’d picked this up and smelt the wine without looking at the bottle, I’d have thought: Chinon. Rain on graphite; kiss of redcurrant. Then tasted it and thought: Bourgueil. Graphite and granite; guitar string of redcurrant on a city rooftop at midnight. It’s not. It's Braucol. From Gaillac. Graphite, granite, rain, midnight, bitten lips and scarlet blood, tears and kohl-smudged cheek bones, redcurrants crushed in broken glasses. The scrape of concrete under finger tips as you lean over and watch the city anxiously breathe fifteen floors away. It's a wine from the depths of French countryside that somehow tastes like New York. I may have written this last year ... surely, surely not £15.95??? VGV (TC)” 17 points
JancisRobinson.com (previous vintage) “This wine is so damn good that I keep thinking that maybe someone made a typo with the price... should the 1 have been a three, or a four? £34.95? Surely, surely not £14.95? It's the second vintage I've tasted, and for the second time it set my spine tingling. For the second time my first thought was, 'hauntingly beautiful'. It's a wine with the mycorrhizal soul of Pinot Noir inside the sumptuous blackcurrant flesh of fine Cabernet Sauvignon inside the earth-leather skin of Gaillac. It is as transparent as light through a gem-cut ruby, transmitting the story of vineyard stones and vintage and variety with unnerving candour. But it's so much more than that. If you've ever sat in an old chapel on an old wooden pew as the sun sets through ancient stained-glass windows and watched the light glow and bend, refracting gently through the rippled glass, long shafts and pools on stones catching silent dust motes, old hand-smelted iron shaping the shapes of glass, you'll know what this wine tastes like. Ruby-red, amethyst-purple fruit, iron, dust, dark lines, old-glass and light-shaft-fine tannins, faint cedar. VVGV (TC). Drink now-2030.” 17 points
Customer comments (including the previous vintage):
”Gosh, that stuff is seriously good. I love cellaring wines for a good few years but may not be able to resist this. It’s drinking beautifully now but would clearly keep going for some significant time yet. Really super. “ - Mr N.L.
“It’s going down alarmingly well!” - Mr. P. B.
“This wine is amazing. It tastes like the love child of a left bank Bordeaux and something scrummy from Tuscany. Could I get another 12?” - Mr. A. P.
“I came across the wine at a dinner party at the weekend. Excellent wine. We could not believe what it was as we tasted alongside some very expensive wines, but were served blind.“ - Mr M.H.
“It’s such a lovely wine.” - Mr K.B.